My name is Clarence Cavedweller Passiformus V. It’s a wren thing. We are from the family Troglodytidae after all. Not a lot of people know this, but in Latin the ae at the end of words is pronounced i. Just saying. My father was a Greek scholar as well as Latin. I’m Irish and I must say I do like the Irish term: dreoilín. Nice ring to it.
Two Extracts removed from a short story. A man ruminates as he watches his son play in an All Ireland Final…
How’s the going, like? We’re all sound here in Tuscany Downs in Cork, where we don’t have no water meters and we won’t neither. Ever. Over my dead body. I’m getting dirty looks from yerwan next door but it’s not my fault that she let the water run out on the road so that there was a sheet of ice outside her gate. Lucky nobody was killed. Tommy could have banged his head or anything. He could have an acute subdural haematoma, or something. Look what happened to Cilla Black, like. If there’s culpability, there’s culpability – it’s in the lawyer’s hands now, I’ll let justice take its course. They’ll settle anyway, they always do. That’s deadly news about David Bowie. Between himself, Lemmy and that English actor from Harry Potter, it’s getting scary. Jesus if cancer killed all them, there’s no hope for the rest of us. Especially
It’s been a terrible week here in Tuscany Downs in Cork City, just terrible. And it’s only Tuesday. We had frost and you’ll never guess what happened. My gutter was leaking and with all the rain the past few weeks, the water was flowing down my path and on to the road. Well, that froze over last night and didn’t Tommy Sullivan next door slip on it and he’s after hurting himself. I can’t get the rights of it from his mother, that little rip, but he’s on crutches and she says he has ‘severe trauma’ – whatever that is. I don’t think anything is broken, though. I wouldn’t mind but that know-it-all next door has been on to me for weeks, months, about fixing it. But I kept putting him off. I just couldn’t bear being beholding to him, Jesus I’d never hear the end of it. Of course
You come downstairs early. The wind woke you so that’s that. Anyway, you like being down there on your own, pottering around the kitchen while they’re all asleep above. You switch on the Christmas tree lights. Somehow they’re more comforting in the pale grey dawn than in the dark of the night. Then you get a yearning for the Arvo Pärt Cantus, so you dig it out on your iPod and put on your headphones and listen to it as you wash up the wine glasses. It was good of Jenny and Chris to call even if she does think she knows it all.The state of your nails – maybe Liz will give you another voucher for that place on Grafton Street. You vow not to drink tonight when Claire comes over. How you’d manage without your amazing sister you’ll never know. You empty the dishwasher quietly, feeling the curve
